No new episodes and no re-runs of MacGyver at the moment. The Production Office re-opened on June 4, and filming for Season 3 starts in less than 10 days. Also, Season 2 scored some nominations and awards!
(Minor Spoiler Alert: You might get spoilered about Season 3 by reading this post and its comments or by clicking on the links provided!)
What are Cast and Crew up to?
Several cast members took opportunity of the hiatus and enjoyed some downtime, attended charity events or started on new projects in between.
Lucas Till enjoyed a short holiday on Hawaii with family and friends. On June 26, he went to the shooting range with friend Mike Milligan. George Eads spent several days on the Bahamas with his family. He also attended the LA Golf Classic, an annual fundraiser organized by the SAG-AFTRA Foundation. Last week, Tristin Mays travelled to Jamaica with her brother and a group of friends; including on-screen-boyfriend Lance Gross (Billy Colton). The group took part of workshops and charity events for the RuJohn Foundation.
Justin did some more Stand-Up comedy shows, but still found time to pose with fans for photos. In his Instagram Live Story on June 26, he sported a new hairstyle. At the moment, there’s no news about the movie project he is attached to, so it’s not clear if this is a new do for the movie, the Reboot or just for fun before they start filming again. (The status of said movie project could be relevant since it would probably interfere with his screentime on Season 3.)
Executive Producer Peter Lenkov still spends a lot of time on the Paramount Studio lot, presumably working on finalizing the scripts, doing table reads and other pre-production-work for his many TV shows. David Dastmalchian is promoting his new movie “Ant-Man and the Wasp”, hitting red carpets and prepping for interviews.
Meanwhile, the crew is slowly trickling into the studio; setting up shop and prepping the gear, or sending ordered gear (e.g. T-Marks) to the studio. The prop people started work on Monday while most of the grip crew will start next week. Set dog Einstein has already been back at Stage 6 yesterday.
Season 1 News
Due to Celebrity Undercover Boss, there are no Reboot re-runs at the moment – contrary to pretty much all the other action and drama shows in the CBS line-up. More episodes for Celebrity Undercover Boss (CUB) – some of them reruns even – are scheduled for Fridays 8pm until August 31. At the moment, it looks like there are no plans for MacGyver reruns at all which still makes no sense to me – considering the Season 1 reruns had higher ratings than the CUB premieres; not to mention that the CUB rerun airing today just premiered on May 11.
Season 2 News
The Reboot got nominated for an International TV Audience Award within the category “Action & Science-Fiction TV Series”. Sadly, it lost against Scorpion, another CBS Show (which ultimately wasn’t really a surprise, considering Executive Producer Nicholas Wootton had been listed as a VIP guest on the Festival Website for weeks before the event.)
Composer Keith Power, who’s involved in all three of Peter Lenkov’s Reboot Shows, just won the “Screen Composer of the Year” Award.
Stunt Coordinator Jeff Wolfe had handed in a Season 2 Stunt Reel for the Emmy Awards. Nominations will be announced mid-July.
Lucas Till was nominated for the Teen Choice Awards in the category “Choice Action TV Actor”. The first voting period ended on June 19. Voting for the 2nd wave started on June 22, but it doesn’t look like any of the cast made the cut for other categories in the 2nd wave of nominations. The Awards Show will air on August 12.
Season 3 News
On June 22, Costume Designer Sarah Downer tweeted about her excitement of doing the first fitting soon. According to Justin Hires, filming for Season 3 should start around July 10 (which is the same day that Hawaii Five-0 will start filming). Like every year, he also revealed the Season Premiere Episode Title: Improvise. Written by Peter Lenkov and Craig O’Neill, the episode will be directed by Stephen Herek.
Interestingly, David Slack – husband of Kate Bond (who portrays Phoenix Tech Jill in the Reboot) – is not listed as Executive Producer anymore. Instead, there’s Rob Pearlstein listed as Co-Executive Producer. Pearlstein had previously worked as a producer on all episodes of Scorpion and had also written about 11 episodes for the now-cancelled CBS show.
Fans have been discussing if some of the Scorpion cast (or even Scorpion characters) might show up on the Reboot, especially since it seemed very likely last year that both shows would have a cross-over soon. Maybe it’s more likely now that writers or producers who had multi-year-contracts with CBS might end up on the Reboot instead.
The Fall Premiere Date and the amount of episodes for Season 3 are still not known to us *sigh*. There’s also no news yet about a Season 2 DVD release, although most other CBS shows have their DVD release dates set for August or September.
Original MacGyver News
While there was a serious lack of Reboot News over the last weeks, there’s interesting news for the Original Show. For one, CBS just announced that they’re in the process of remastering the Original Show into HD. All 7 Seasons should be available until the end of the year, although it’s not clear yet how it will be distributed. The Before-and-After preview looks pretty good to me.
Second, after years of waiting, MacGyver finally gets his own Funko Figure. After “coming soon” promises on Reddit and leaked release schedules on Instagram, Funko officially announced that a MacGyver Pop! Vinyl Figure is coming in August. Of course, he’s decked in his favorite jacket, carrying his SAK and a glorious mullet.
On the other hand, Original MacGyver isn’t the only one anymore with having collectible cars made by Greenlight. I’ve seen pictures of the car model on social media last year, but it was only yesterday that I came across a picture of the packaging.
It’s a police car – the same model (Ford Crown Victoria) that Greenlight uses for most of their police cars. (Of course, it’s much cheaper to obtain a license for one model and use the prototype case for several TV shows.)
It’s great that Reboot fans finally can get their hands on some collectibles, but I’m still confused why they chose a police car for the first MacGyver Reboot vehicle.
MacGyver in Germany and Switzerland
Starting July 9, German FreeTV channel Sat.1 will premiere two episodes of Season 2 on Mondays 8pm. On June 26, they released a German promo trailer on YouTube, using snippents from the first few episodes.
Swiss FreeTV channel 3+ will start July 4, airing the two first episodes on Wednesday 9pm before moving to Fridays 9pm, skirting around the Soccer World Cup games on TV.
The German Episode Titles so far:
2×01: Von den Toten auferstanden (Literal translation: Risen from the dead; Original Title DIY Or DIE)
2×02: Solomission für Artemis (Solo Mission for Artemis; Muscle Car + Paper Clips)
2×03: Die rote Faust (The red fist; Roulette Wheel + Wire)
2×04: Väter und Söhne (Fathers and Sons; X-Ray + Penny)
2×05: Geisterinsel (Ghost Island; Skull + Electromagnet)
2×06: Höllenfeuer (Hellfire; Jet Engine + Pickup Truck)
2×07: Herz und Helden (Heart and Heroes, Duct Tape + Jack)
2×08: Der Turm der blauen Pferde (The Tower of Blue Horses, Packing Peanuts + Fire)
2×09: Die Regeln des Spiels (The Rules of the Game, CD-Rom + Hoagie Foil)
2×10: Verloren im Eis (Lost in Ice, War Room + Ship)
FunFact: The translation of the German title for 2×06 (Jet Engine + Pickup Truck) is the same title as for Original MacGyver Episode 1×08 – the episode on which the storyline for Episode 2×06 is loosely based on. In 1×08: Hellfire (1985), an accident starts a fire in an oil-well owned by MacGyver’s friends. MacGyver and his buddy go to fetch dynamite so the fire can be put out. The transport of the leaking dynamite with their failing Pickup Truck is stupidly dangerous since there’s a time limit – they have to move fast, but cautious. Even more interesting: This episode was probably the inspiration for a recent episode of Hawaii Five-0 (7×18: E malama pono; Handle with Care), where McGarrett and Danno have to transport an Uranium bomb – set to blow and strapped down on their Pickup Truck. During transport, they have to cross a riverbed the same way Original MacGyver did.
Dashboard On Fire 
Thank you for compiling all that info. Great job!
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Thanks! It’s a lot of work, but it’s also kind of fun 😉
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